chandan_jha18 (11/14/2012)
Perry,Thanks for replying.
The server uses VMWare and the sysadmin wrote the following to me:
'All of these drives are situated on the same set volume on the NetApp'.
He also wrote that though the files are separated on the logical level but may give more benefits on physical level. If the files are on different logical drives only then it just gives better manageability and nothing else.
Please suggest.
Thanks
Chandan
Are they VMWare virtual disks or Raw Device Mappings?
If virtual disks, are they all on the same VMFS data store?
VMWare virtual disks really suck for random I\O at the best of times. If you don't believe me, setup a VM with a virtual disk and an RDM attached and run SQLIO against each, then check the results. Sequential I\O I have found virtually no difference.
scogeb (11/14/2012)
As for the RAID, depending on the NetApp, it might all be a certain type, maybe RAID 6 or some kind of proprietary RAID. You could also ask your NetApp admin about that as well. Se if he/she has volumes with different RAID types or if they're all the same.
Netapp storage systems use RAID6 for the disk aggregates with Netapps own proprietary Write Anywhere Filesystem Layout (WAFL).
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